Category Archives: Pioneers
Synchronicity
This morning I was looking through a photobook of Victorian pictures when I saw this portrait of Julia Stephens & her daughter Virginia, who later in life wrote novels (Virginia Woolf). The picture was taken by Henry H. H. Cameron.
I was amazed by how much Virginia resembles my little Teddy – although her mouth shape is very different by comparison.
Just now I saw a beautiful photograph online, it’s called the Gardener’s Daughter:
This was taken by Julia Cameron, Henry’s mother, whose niece – Julia Jackson – was Virginia Woolf’s mother. Such a pleasing synchronicity. Julia Cameron discovered a love of photography at the rather late age of 48, and she gave up taking pictures just 11 years later after moving to Ceylon (she found chemicals impossible to source), but even so, she took many beautiful photographs during that short time. Here is a remarkable portrait she took of her niece in 1867, aged 21.
William Carrick, Pioneer.
An incredible record of early photography, these images of Russian peasants (“Peasant Characters from Simbirsk Province”) taken somewhere between 1860 and 1870 are an incredible window into the past, and also provide a rare glimpse of the very beginnings of street photography, which found its zenith in the work of the great Henri Cartier-Bresson.
They were taken by Edinburgh born photographer William Carrick in central Russia and he would have used a very early form of plate camera, since portable cameras of any kind hadn’t even been conceived of at this time.
You can see a further 20 photographs from the William Carrick collection over here.
Also check out this awesome picture of William Carrick at his St Petersburg studio here.
